conservatives and politics 9:00 pm
Just a quick update on an earlier post in which I said Republicans don’t threaten to move to Canada when they lose. Turns out some of them do! I think mostly younger ones. And a few are saying New Zealand or Australia or something. Apparently Obama is just that bad.
politics 10:27 pm
In a few short hours we find out whether America will finally fall to the black muslim Arab terrorist space demon communist freedom-and-america-hating freedom-hater terror-loving godless inexperienced elitist fraudulent anti-Christs. If this happens only a minority of America is actually America anymore, and we will soon change the name of the country to Obamaland, and the capital will be changed to Hopeville, and all good American patriots (ie, Republicans, who put Country First despite thinking half of the country is full of America-hating freedom-haters) will be rounded up and put in camps, where they will be forced to do work and get paid huge salaries, but all of their money will be taken away from them and given to fat lazy black people, who hate whitey and love sitting around and accepting handouts from the government. They will laugh quietly to themselves and give one another terrorist fist-bumps, because they know they are really just milking the system at the expense of the poor belabored patriots! They are all evil and selfish, statistically. Rich people just want to be able to enjoy their wealth without having to think about those horrible poor people, but they won’t be able to do that anymore, because soon the poor will control the government and it will be like Karl Marx but a whole lot bloodier.
Terrorists will randomly bomb churches and private schools and small businesses and good Christian homes and then fist-bump the puppet governments in the cities, and host fundraisers for Obama in their living room, where everyone will have to come and give all their money, ever. And everyone will profit off the labor of the Republicans in their slave labor camps and sit around being decadent and drinking wine that the French shipped over. The whole country will look like a war zone and it will be a mockery of everything America once stood for. The Freedom Eagle will circle the skies one last time, shedding a single patriotic tear, and fly off, crying like the phoenix, vowing to return one day and plant the seeds of freedom anew.
So yeah, I predict Obama with about 350 electoral votes.
conservatives and politics 7:48 am
One of the conservative forums on which I lurk has a thread for predicting the election’s outcome. Approximately half of the 35 votes believe McCain will win (18/35, slightly better than half). In the interests of full disclosure, a lot of people on this particular forum seem to be under the age of 18. Still, I was surprised that fully half of voters thought McCain would win.
Some gems from the thread, after the jump.
politics 7:06 am
I’d like you to perform a little thought experiment with me. I want you to think of some people you know in countries with socialized health care–usually, it is Canada and the UK. Have you ever talked to them about health care? If the answer is yes, I’m going to make a prediction: they ‘agree’ with your stance on the matter. And I’m going to go a little further: if we had the same friends in the UK and Canada, and you disagree with me on socialized health care, you will still assume your Canadian or British friends agreed with you over me.
Maybe it’s the questions. Maybe I ask them “do you like not having to pay for health care?” and they say “yeah, it’s great,” and you ask them “do you like having to go through government red tape in order to get health care?” and they say “man I hate it.” Perhaps I say “do you like that even those who are poor are afforded basic medical care?” and they say “it’s great, man” and you say “do you like paying extra taxes to pay for your health care?” and they say “no, it’s pretty lame.” But I think it’s more fundamental than that.
I think it’s the basic premise: nobody likes dealing with health care, period, socialized or not. There are reasons for this. The first, and perhaps the most obvious and overlooked, is that nobody likes being sick or injured. Americans don’t like it eather. Generally speaking going to the doctor is unpleasant because the only time you are going is when there is something wrong with you. The second reason is that nobody likes paperwork. Nobody likes doing taxes. Nobody likes waiting for administrative red tape to be cleared. Nobody likes dealing with bureaucracy. And let’s face it. That’s basically what government is.
There are plenty of arguments to be made for and against socialized health care. Fair enough. Let’s not bring the Canadians into this, shall we? Because I’m pretty sure you and I can look at the same group and see two very different things.
(I’d prefer if we don’t bring up our experience with Medicare or Medicaid, either–I don’t generally feel those are terribly successful, but that has nothing to do with why socialized health care as an entire system will work or fail.)
Uncategorized and liberals and politics 1:09 am
MSNBC has an article about how Barack Obama misrepresented some of Sarah Palin’s comments about negative campaigning. The very first comment: “You people are ridiculous with your headlines. Palin clearly criticized the robo-calls.” The poster’s name is “MSM is biased.” This confuses me. I’m used to accusations of bias, of course–Fox is conservative, MSNBC is liberal, and as some people would have it, everyone that isn’t Fox is liberal–but I’m not sure I ever expected to see someone accuse MSNBC of conservative bias.
Perhaps this is just a case of the hostile media effect. But that is most prominent in a controlled study–and by and large the media is pretty friendly with Obama. What I think this is about, really, is the danger of getting your news from Daily Kos or Huffington Post (or, on the other hand, WorldNetDaily or all those other fun Republican places). Research your news, please.
conservatives and politics 1:02 am
It doesn’t take a lot of digging to find someone who wants to move to Canada if McCain/Palin achieve a victory. I think everyone knows someone who was going to move to Canada if Bush/Cheney won in 2004, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the same about Bush/Cheney in 2000. I don’t actually know anyone who moved to Canada. (Fortunately, this year, they will almost certainly not have to change their minds.) But I know lots of people who said it, and I think they were sincere at the time.
It’s also not difficult to find a Republican who thinks that Obama is a fraud, suspects he has terrorist leanings, believes he is a secret Muslim, or calls him a communist or a Marxist. I’ve known a few who believe he hates America, hates white people, and that he is a dangerous radical. Naturally, these people also believe that anyone voting Democrat is in some way inherently flawed. Either they are selfish and lazy, brainwashed by the liberal media, or actively opposed to America. They believe the Democratic supermajority of 60 seats in the Senate, combined with a Democrattic president, will bring our country to ruin. They use phrases like “America the foolish.” They say that “One man one vote was the stupidest thing we ever did.” (This guy I just quoted is something special. I can write pages upon pages about him.) They essentially believe that our democratic system is flawed when they are losing.
A lot of this could probably be said about the “I’m moving to Canada” liberals. But I have never once seen a Republican make the same threat. I think the reason is this: for the conservative base, it is “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Patriotism is required–anyone who is not a patriot is a freedom-hating terrorist. Patriotism is the greatest of virtues. “My country, right or wrong.” “You don’t appreciate the sacrifices that man has made for our country.” You can do nothing better than love your country as a conservative.
I think this creates cognitive dissonance for them. If Obama is elected, they will complain about everything he does and says. If the Democrats pull off their 60-seat supermajority, they will bemoan the atrocities being committed against the Founding Fathers’ ideas for this great nation. Their way is obviously the correct way. They are the only ones who put country first. They are the only ones who are bipartisan. Everyone else is an extremely partisan self-centered radical!
Unfortunately, “everyone else” these days apparently make up half the nation. According to Gallup, there are almost ten percent more of those selfish America-hating radicals than good, hard-working conservatives. In a very real way, America is made up mostly of these people the conservative base couldn’t find a good word for if they were paid to.
They will hate the government soon, probably all three branches. They think the majority (or at least a plurality) of the population are mindless sheep at best and active opponents of America at worst. But they still love their country. They are patriots. So they have no recourse but to be angry. It must have been better back when we had our way, back when Mr. Reagan told Mr. Gorbachev to tear down the wall. It’s those liberals who’ve ruined everything for us–how dare they?
It isn’t that liberals are never angry, it’s that liberals have other options.